Here's a roundup of reviews for the new iPad mini with Retina display, which follows one up we did for the iPad Air at the end of October. This roundup for the iPad mini with Retina display includes reviews from Macworld, The Verge, Engadget, Gizmodo, Daring Fireball, PC Magazine, CNET, iLounge, Apple Insider, Wired, Laptop Magazine and Slashgear. You can find excerpts and links to each review down below. So, check them out if you're interested in learning more about the new device.

Macworld – "The iPad mini was a great size when it was introduced in the fall of 2012, and it's still a great size today. It's small enough to hold in one hand and read like a book, yet powerful enough to pivot into landscape orientation and get some work done. The original iPad mini won people's hearts despite the deficiencies of its processor and screen; the Retina iPad mini has left all of those deficiencies behind. It's small and light and five times as fast as the old mini, but with 10 hours of battery life," writes Jason Snell.

The Verge – "The iPad mini with Retina display is a fantastic tablet, but one that defies categorization. On one hand, it's most competitive with the Nexus 7 and Amazon Kindle Fire HDX, other high-resolution small tablets. But those are $229, fully $170 less than the $399 iPad mini, and they're much smaller as well,” writes David Pierce.

Engadget – "In the course of a year, the iPad mini has hit puberty, and matured quite a bit. It's an iterative update, for sure, but one that makes it vastly better than the original. Because it now offers a Retina display, fast connectivity and a powerful processor, the mini now shares top-tier product status with the iPad Air. This is precisely the iPad mini we've been waiting for, but it comes with a price hike of $70 over last year's model," writes Brad Molen.

Gizmodo – "The original iPad mini featured a flawless design undermined by an unforgivably subpar display, an antique frame wasted on fingerpaint. Good news. This year's iPad mini is, after a short time playing with it, picture perfect," writes Brian Barrett.

Daring Fireball – "This year, there are no compromises, there is no or. The iPad Mini has gone retina and provides just a hair less than the full performance of the Air, with no appreciable increase in weight or thickness over last year's Mini," writes John Gruber.

PC Magazine – "The new iPad mini has a super-sharp Retina display and packs all of the power of the iPad Air into a more portable package," writes Sascha Segan.

CNET – "The new iPad Mini somehow shrinks down the iPad Air into an even more compact package, sacrificing nearly nothing. It's more expensive than before, but it's also the perfect smaller tablet," writes Scott Stein.

iLounge – "The Retina iPad mini offers a suite of major improvements relative to the original mini. It's around 5 times faster, delivers roughly an hour of extra battery life under various testing conditions, and has so much additional screen detail that the differences are practically night and day," writes Jeremy Horwitz.

Apple Insider – "Apple's iPad mini with Retina display remains an easy recommendation. It features best-in-class software and hardware, and is backed by the strongest mobile ecosystem available ," writes Neil Hughes.

Wired – "The iPad mini is exactly the type of product we expect from Apple. Stunning good looks, a display so high resolution it'd take a magnifying glass to pick out the pixels, and unparalleled performance. This is the smaller iPad that should have debuted last year, but hey, better late than never," writes Christina Bonnington.

Laptop Magazine – "The iPad mini with Retina Display is simultaneously a splurge compared with 7-inch Android tablets and one heck of a value in the context of Apple's own tablet lineup. For $100 less than the full-size iPad Air, you get the same sharp screen resolution and blazing A7 chip in a more compact design. We prefer the color saturation and black levels on the Air's screen -- and some will like having the extra real estate on the Air's display for content creation -- but the mini delivers a lot for the money," writes Mark Spoonauer.

Slashgear – "As upgrades go, you can't fault the iPad mini with Retina display. Apple took the two biggest complaints – speed and screen – in hand, and returned with a tablet that looks great, performs great, and still delivers on battery life and portability. The tempting option might have been to dilute the update so as to leave the iPad Air clearly in the lead as the full-sized flagship, but Apple is obviously so confident in the equal allure of each model, it has no reason to artificially delineate the range," Vincent Nguyen.

Update: Here are new reviews of the iPad mini with Retina display from Ars Technica and AnandTech.

Ars Technica - "If money's no object, the Retina iPad mini is the best small tablet you can buy today. It might even be the best tablet you can buy today, period. If you passed on the iPad mini last year in hopes of getting a Retina model this year, you made the right call; this is the one you were waiting for," writes Andrew Cunningham.

AnandTech - "When I concluded our iPad Air review I assumed the iPad mini with Retina Display was a true no-compromise, smaller alternative to the iPad Air. In many senses that’s true. Wireless connectivity is identical between the models, battery life is pretty much the same as well. Peak performance is close and you no longer have to accept a lower resolution display. Last year’s iPad mini was easy to recommend, and this year's is even easier. To my surprise however, the iPad Air continues to hold some advantages that may resonate well with some users," writes Anand Lal Shimpi.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the iPad mini with Retina Display. Amazing that Apple could pack the same technology as the iPad Air into such a small design and still get decent battery life with a Retina Display.

I'm honestly more excited to see one of these than the iPad Air.

I personally just purchased a used 4th gen 128GB iPad 4G for $525. It still has 1 1/2 years of AppleCare+. New, I'd be looking at $1000 (with AppleCare+). I often stay a generation or two behind and live vicariously through others

Maybe next year for me, but what a great Christmas this is going to be for many.

I went with the iPad Air. I was able to see the iPad mini with Retina over the weekend though. I would tend to agree with Ben's comparison to the iPad Air's screen. It just doesn't appear to have the same color saturation or brightness. Duller would be the best word to describe it in comparison. At least under the lighting at my local Best Buy._________________My Setup

I went with the iPad Air. I was able to see the iPad mini with Retina over the weekend though. I would tend to agree with Ben's comparison to the iPad Air's screen. It just doesn't appear to have the same color saturation or brightness. Duller would be the best word to describe it in comparison. At least under the lighting at my local Best Buy.

I saw some images comparing the two on MacRumors.
The mini looks similar to a non retina as far as saturation goes.

Ars Technica - "If money's no object, the Retina iPad mini is the best small tablet you can buy today. It might even be the best tablet you can buy today, period. If you passed on the iPad mini last year in hopes of getting a Retina model this year, you made the right call; this is the one you were waiting for," writes Andrew Cunningham.

AnandTech - "When I concluded our iPad Air review I assumed the iPad mini with Retina Display was a true no-compromise, smaller alternative to the iPad Air. In many senses that's true. Wireless connectivity is identical between the models, battery life is pretty much the same as well. Peak performance is close and you no longer have to accept a lower resolution display. Last year’s iPad mini was easy to recommend, and this year's is even easier. To my surprise however, the iPad Air continues to hold some advantages that may resonate well with some users," writes Anand Lal Shimpi._________________Glenn
123Macmini.com

Ars Technica - "If money's no object, the Retina iPad mini is the best small tablet you can buy today. It might even be the best tablet you can buy today, period. If you passed on the iPad mini last year in hopes of getting a Retina model this year, you made the right call; this is the one you were waiting for," writes Andrew Cunningham.

AnandTech - "When I concluded our iPad Air review I assumed the iPad mini with Retina Display was a true no-compromise, smaller alternative to the iPad Air. In many senses that's true. Wireless connectivity is identical between the models, battery life is pretty much the same as well. Peak performance is close and you no longer have to accept a lower resolution display. Last year’s iPad mini was easy to recommend, and this year's is even easier. To my surprise however, the iPad Air continues to hold some advantages that may resonate well with some users," writes Anand Lal Shimpi.

The AnandTech review sort of confirms what I was saying about the display. It does not reproduce a full sRGB gamut like the iPad Air or even the Nexus 7 or 10. I'm not saying that it's a deal breaker. But when you compare them side-by-side, there is an obvious difference.

Yup, most are overviews, not reviews. I bet half the "reviewers" haven't even had an iPad mini Retina in hand yet.

No disrespect to the links provided, I'm just saying it's nice to have decent reviews. They SHOULD take at least a week to come out. Half the reviews are published within hours of a product release. I bet half the reviews had 90% of their article written before even seeing the product. You know by the way Anand reviews that he actually does testing.

I'm more concerned about the reports of image retention. You probably wouldn't even notice a difference in the color gamut. Unless of course you held it up right next to the Air.

Equally, you're not likely to notice image retention unless you run software that is designed to induce image retention. For the panels that are experiencing image retention, perhaps a firmware update will address it, if not... return it, if it's impacting your usage.

I'm going with an iPad Air when the time comes. I just prefer the larger screen size. Plus, these reports (Especially the one from Displaymate) have me thinking that Apple was possibly forced into using a display technology (IGZO) that isn't all that great at this moment in time. At least at the resolution Apple is using with the rMini._________________1.25GHz Mac Mini / 1.8GHz iMac G5 / 2.0GHz C2D Mac mini (2009)
4GB iPod mini / 2G iPod shuffle / 16GB iPhone 3G
Apple TV 2
iLife's a Bitch!

I wish the two would have been identical, but that being said, I've never had a customer complain about the color gamut on the previous mini, iPad 2 or iPad 1.
I'm sure most people will be very pleased with the iPad mini ret.
If it is a huge concern, then get an Air, or wait for the next mini (and the next round of complaints). Personally I prefer spending my time enjoying and appreciating what I have as opposed to picking it apart. If that's what you enjoy, all the power to you, these are forums after all and people certainly seem to enjoy doing so.

My wife bought the iPad Air and loves it so far. Her only complaint is that it gets a little warm after prolonged usage. The screen and design are awesome as well in my opinion. I don't know how the iPad mini with retina really compares with it screen wise, but these numbers and reports might not tell the entire story. You probably wouldn't even know there was a difference without seeing them right next to each other. And what two displays ever look the same in a comparison like that anyways? Every display and device sort of has its own unique screen properties. Now... I'm not saying that people shouldn't nitpick at things, everyone has the right, but I think some people out on the intertubes just overreact to this kind of stuff. It's probably not even that big of a deal in person or with like real world performance. Just my humble mumble.